The gifted and talented program in Douglas County has been designed to ensure that the intellectual abilities of it individual or challenged and used to their fullest extent, so that each student may realize their full potential for themselves and to society. At the same time, and attempt to minimize separation from the main body of students, so that each student social and emotional development are not in anyway supported. Since will not only learn common core concepts, but will learn how to apply them to both Concrete and abstract situations, analyze relationships, innovate, and evaluate. Whenever possible, student strengths and weaknesses will call inside with strategies included.

What Is Our Goal?

The Scope and Sequence outlined in Sept 2011 identifies the following as GT objectives all based around the GT Domains of Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Research and Social/Emotional Learning:

Make real world connections to learning math

Work productively together as a team to produce a product

Recognize their preferred approach to learning and expand their repertoire

Enhance and extend their knowledge of classroom common core standards in the GT environment

My goal this year is to use the 6th grade science curriculum to guide us through all of the above objectives. The curriculum includes thermal energy, weather and climate, human impact, body systems, cells, heredity, and engineering and measurement.

HAPPENING NOW

MARCHThis month students are testing paper towels. They have watched commercials that make claims about absorbance and strength, so they are seeing which paper towel brand is really best. They created their own experiments and recorded data and photos of the experiment. After they will take this data and create a scatter plot to visually determine which brand was best at the experiments tested and they will also complete a cost analysis. So which brand is best? Stay tuned to find out! JANUARY AND FEBRUARY Students completed and tested their boat designs. Some boats could hold over 150 washers weighing about 2 pounds. They produced commercials to show their boats off and explain what was special about them. DECEMBERSink or swim? Can you design a boat to hold 100 pennies? How about 200? Students will be using their knowledge of buoyancy, displacement, and balance to design, build, and test cardboard and duct tape boats. We will tie this to the weather unit they are working through in science classes... shh, don't tell them but there will be a storm at sea!​ NOVEMBERWe have taken flight and will be journeying through how catapults work and making zip line machines this unit. We are relating this to the science being taught in gen ed class that includes weather and gravity. We will also include all parts of STEAM- science, technology, engineering, art and math into our designing, building and testing! Ask your child about these things and maybe make your own catapult over Thanksgiving break.

OCTOBERWe are wrapping up our Thermal Energy unit! We built thermal houses that had a variety of insulation materials and determined their effectiveness. It was amazing to see the though, hard work, and talent that went into the designs. Next up... a little journey around the US to visit Nation Parks, National Monuments or National Memorials where student pick on of those, do a little research about it, make a clue card and clay game piece to add to our National Treasure game board (yes, it's just cardboard that I drew the US on, but its a game board to us!) and we will learn about many special places in America. ​ AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER: The first project in GT was for students to design their ideal bedroom. They were given no other deign parameters than the square footage requirements. They brainstormed, create a rough draft, and are working on the final draft now. In the meantime, we have discussed scale and how using ratios and rates help us in evaluating which scale to use and how to read plans. This has also been an excellent way for me to get to see their interests through what they put in the room.

Next up, we will move into a thermal energy unit where we will be calculating flow rate of water from a faucet at the school, extrapolating data to evaluate the impact of water usage, evaluate low-cost methods to increase efficiency of heating water, explain how insulators work, explain the difference between dependent and independent variables, understand passive cooling strategies, and create and build efficient model homes..

Contact ME

I am at PWLMS Wednesday and Thursdays for GT. I service two other school sites in Douglas County the rest of the week. I am in and out of my classroom, even on days when I am on campus, so the best way to contact me is by email at jworthin@dcsd.k12.nv.us

if you need to call please know that I only can access my voice mail on days when I am on campus.775-265-6100 x 2659